


we're taller in another dimension

by CarmenOnMonday



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24471532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarmenOnMonday/pseuds/CarmenOnMonday
Summary: The roads of soulmates cross in the right time. It’s believed that once you meet that person, you just know it’s them. Until then, you have a diary in which you can talk to them, and that’s supposed to be enough.
Relationships: Dele Alli/Eric Dier
Comments: 1
Kudos: 44





	we're taller in another dimension

**Author's Note:**

> A little experiment from me, different than my other stuff. Fill the blanks on your own, and... treat it less literally than everything else? Feels more like a poetry to me. I don't know if it makes any sense.

“I wish we could meet.” Eric’s big, messy handwriting looks inadequate on the elegant paper of his diary. The contrast on the page ironically corresponds with his conflicted emotions. He’s a bulky, clumsy man, trying so hard to indulge into this world of ideas too perfect to be true.

The words disappear, as they always do, and all that’s left to do is stare at the immaculate empty page and wait for the answer.

Eric reaches out for his phone and scrolls through the feed on Twitter, but keeps the diary in the corner of his eye.

It’s not the first time he wrote these same exact words. It’s not the first time he sees the answer either. It doesn’t matter; his heart beats as furiously as the first time he awaited the response.

“Me too,” appears on the page, letter by letter, in the familiar cursive. He loves this handwriting by now, the only mark left by the person on the other side of this book, the only sign that he even crosses their mind.

He wishes their conversations would stay on the paper as a proof, to remind him times and times again that this right here is the truth. Instead, he needs to ask for confirmation (lately more often than ever before) and holds to it for as long as he can. He tries to engrave these words into the back of his head; they don’t stick. Not with all the confusion clouding his judgement.

It’s never his soulmate who writes to him first, and it’s okay, Eric understands it’s not easy, but he still needs this. Even if it’s embarrassing and he would never admit to anyone his weakness; he needs the assurance, the contact, the support.

“I had a good day today,” Eric writes when the page is blank again. “How was yours?”

It takes two hours before the answer arrives. Eric’s already asleep, his cheek laying on the harsh paper of the diary, when “It was ok” appears on the blank page in a small, hesitant scrawl.

“I wish” is the second message which is left unfinished.

If it was written in the real ink, it would leave a mark on Eric’s skin.

As it is, the words disappear without any trace.

* * *

“Dier.”

“Delboy.”

“Fancy a cuppa?”

“Nah.” Eric lifts the mate cup. “Want some?”

Dele makes a face.

“I don’t know how you can drink it. Disgusting,”

“Really? That’s not what you said last week.” Eric rolls his eyes.

“Last week I was barely alive after all this time zone changes. Couldn’t be trusted. I would drink poison if you gave it to me.”

Because _you_ gave it to me.

* * *

It’s like being in a long-distance relationship, just even more unnerving, because what’s said in the diary stays in the diary (in fact, not even there). There’s no real prospect of the meeting, no phone calls or video chats to look forward to. It’s just an old-school letter writing that is supposed to be enough for them until they meet in the real world.

Nobody wants to rush the first meeting. It wouldn’t be against the rules to ask for the name of that person or for their phone number; the world wouldn’t end if they set up a meeting, but… Nobody wants to mess up with fate, it would be bad taste to force a meeting before the world decides they’re ready.

The roads of soulmates cross in the right time. It’s believed that once you meet that person, you just know it’s them. Until then, you have a diary in which you can talk to them, and that’s supposed to be enough.

It used to be enough, at the beginning. When Eric was young and hopeful, every word felt like a promise of the future.

Now, the future is here. Not as glorious as he imagined.

* * *

“Who are you bringing to the Christmas party?”

“I’m going solo.”

“Still no news on the…” Harry makes a face. “...you know?”

“...nah.”

“You know, once you find that person… The waiting will be worth it. You’ll see.”

“Harry. Stop.”

“I’m just telling you-”

“How do you know?” Eric snaps. “Not everyone’s life is a fairytale.”

“...did they write something bad? Why are you saying so?”

“Because that’s the truth. Don’t you think that the universe choosing the right person for you is actually an act of oppression? Who’s to say that they’re the only person to make you happy? Who’s to say there’s no one else for you than just that one person who coincidentally got stuck with you on the other side of their diary?”

“The universe would lead you to find each other anyway. The diary is just the help. Eric, if you need someone- If I can…”

“Whatever.”

* * *

It happened without any fireworks, months ago. The world continued to spin, boys kept playing football, couches kept screaming at them.

Just Eric stopped breathing for a few seconds upon seeing a new guy arrive for his first ever training with Spurs.

 _It’s you_ , Eric’s mind contributed, the ground under his feet suddenly unstable.

 _But it can’t be_ , was his second (the first reasonable) thought, it can’t because there’s no way the world would fuck him over like that. His soulmate is a beautiful person, someone who creates art, or someone who changes the world, maybe someone who saves lives. Someone who is Eric’s opposite, and at the same time, a perfect complement.

 _It can’t be_ _you_ , Eric decided, and then swore to forget ever considering such an absurd.

No matter how hard Eric tried to put focus on training, his eyes kept escaping to the window on the second floor. In shock, he watched Dele sign the contract.

And then, the boy disappeared for the next half a year, the distance and time bleaching Eric’s memory of him, until the smiley boy and the one from Eric’s diary once again became two completely unrelated opposites.

* * *

Sometimes, Eric wonders if Dele knows. The eventual friendship grew between them despite the their possible fate, not because of it. Eric didn’t put effort into building good foundation for anything bigger, the thought of wheel of fortune forcing them to be together terrifying him more than he wanted to admit.

It happened anyway, in the background, because Dele is a very likeable boy and a good friend if he’s allowed to be only that. There’s Dele, Eric’s best mate with whom Eric can talk about everyday insignificant bullshit, and there is another sweet boy from Eric’s diary who is Eric’s soulmate, unreachable, beautiful, to whom he can admit his longing and whose answers make Eric hurt with unspeakable love; that’s the only way it can be.

Maybe it is in the heartbreak that the love is truly felt with all its grandeur.

* * *

For a long time, the illusion is kept.

Until fate brings them both more pain and unfortunate injuries than they deserve, and a long, exhausting season makes Dele break.

“Can we talk about it? Please. Just this once. ”

He’s soaked wet, standing in front of Eric’s door like a madman. He’s not the Dele, Eric’s mate. He’s not the ideal version from the diary either. He’s somewhere in between, because it’s still just Dele, but he breaks the silence and speaks about the unspeakable, and it makes Eric’s head spin. He lets him in because he can’t imagine not doing it, but he also can’t imagine how will that confrontation go.

“What do you mean? What do you want to talk about?”

Dele drops heavily onto the kitchen chair.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. I’m tired, Eric, I’m exhausted, and you…”

“And I?”

“And you clearly don’t want me, so let’s get that over with.”

Eric can’t breathe. Only Dele can make him lose his breath like that.

“I know I’m a disappointment,” he adds.

“You’re my best friend,” Eric whispers.

Something drops on the table between them. It’s a diary, identical to the one Eric keeps in his bedroom, an indisputable proof of what Eric didn’t allow himself to believe.

“Why do you keep lying?” Dele asks, words marked with pain. “Why do you say you miss me? Why do you say you wish you met me?”

Eric has never seen Dele so disheartened. He’s never seen him as honest, as serious, with his heart on his sleeve.

He’s never seen him so real.

“It’s you,” he whispers.

“What do you mean it’s me?” Dele snaps. “You had to know-”

“I didn’t- I-”

Eric doesn’t have words. He doesn’t know how to admit to never truly seeing Dele for what he is, to being scared of how close he could get, to perceiving soulmates as ideal people embodying one’s daydreams and not… Not someone who knows the exact same pressures, whose life is as ugly and disappointing at times, someone familiar and homely, someone who naturally becomes your mate before you can’t run away from it. Because you don’t want to run away from it, not really, you just don’t know it yet.

“Dele. It’s you. It’s always been you,” Eric says, his eyes finally wide open.

They say that when you see your soulmate for the first time, you immediately know it’s him. They don’t tell you though that the real beginning is not when you see them for the first time face to face, but when you actually _look_ and notice everything: the bad thing, the good things, everything in between.

Reality isn’t perfect; it’s better than that.

“I see you,” Eric says, and that’s how the real story starts.

**Author's Note:**

> [dieretmoi.tumblr.com](https://dieretmoi.tumblr.com/)


End file.
